


how deep is your love

by lilyevcans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, a trc au, jily is bluesey, there's a minor character's death but it doesn't affect anything, you don't need to have read trc to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-10 09:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15946496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyevcans/pseuds/lilyevcans
Summary: If something is repeated enough, it will eventually lose any sense of meaning. The sharpest knives eventually dull, the sharpest words eventually soften and fade away.Lily Evans had known since she could toddle over to where her mother and aunts and cousins instructed her to pick a card that when she kissed her true love, he would die.Perhaps if she had first heard it when she was older, it might have shattered the parts of her heart she had not yet found at age four. But, she heard it when true love seemed as far away as the tropical resorts advertised on the TV they were too poor to go to.Again and again, Lily hears it, until it seems just as common as her mother telling her to clean her disaster of a room or the clucking of the roosters the neighbors keep. By age seventeen, it seems easy to her: don’t fall in love. She’s never leaving this tiny town, and as she hasn’t even felt a flicker of attraction to any of the idiots at her school, and as a rule, stays away from the snobs at Hogwarts, the all-boys private school, this seems an achievable plan.Until James Potter finds his way into her life.A TRC AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been a year in the making, and I'm so nervous and excited to finally post it! Like I said in the tags, you don't need to have read The Raven Cycle series to read this, but you should definitely read it afterward! I've changed the plot and ending a little so that it (hopefully) makes sense to anyone who hasn't read the books.
> 
> The title is from "How Deep is Your Love" by the Bee Gees. For maximum seventies magic vibes, listen to Fleetwood Mac like I did while writing.
> 
> The characters belong to J.K. Rowling and the idea and a few lines of dialogue belong to Maggie Stiefvater. I hope you enjoy!

If something is repeated enough, it will eventually lose any sense of meaning. The sharpest knives eventually dull, the sharpest words eventually soften and fade away.

Lily Evans had known since she could toddle over to where her mother and aunts and cousins instructed her to pick a card that when she kissed her true love, he would die.

Perhaps if she had first heard it when she was older, it might have shattered the parts of her heart she had not yet found at age four. But, she heard it when true love seemed as far away as the tropical resorts advertised on the TV they were too poor to go to.

Again and again, Lily hears it, until it seems just as common as her mother telling her to clean her disaster of a room or the clucking of the roosters the neighbors keep. By age seventeen, it seems easy to her: don’t fall in love. She’s never leaving this tiny town, and as she hasn’t even felt a flicker of attraction to any of the idiots at her school, and as a rule, stays away from the snobs at Hogwarts, the all boys private school, this seems an achievable plan.

Until she comes down the stairs one morning to see her sister Petunia sitting on the counter, wrapped up in scarves like a mummy. She’s back from a year studying with their aunt, a famous psychic, who was teaching her to “hone her talents”, which include bragging about her third eye and being a an absolute harpy.

“God, your perfume is making me high,” Lily says, in what she hopes comes off as a joke.

Petunia rolls her eyes, then grabs Lily’s hand. She makes a show of tracing her fingers, all long and slender and freshly manicured, up and down the calluses of Lily’s hand, then gives a perfect little gasp.

“Oh, my!”

Lily grumbles, trying to push past her to get a spoon, but Petunia grabs her shoulder and turns her towards her.

“Lily, listen to me.”

Her normally beady eyes are very wide. Lily can see her reflection in her sister’s eyes, their almost-identical shades of green blurring together.

“Lily, this is the year you’ll fall in love.”

* * *

Lily sits on the hood of the car, kicking her legs against it idly. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and she’s bored.

Tonight is St. Mark’s Eve. A forgotten holiday for a forgotten man. But who St. Mark was was unimportant. Every year Lily, Petunia, and their mother drove to an equally forgotten church to glimpse the spirits traveling on the corpse road. It was simple, just as simple as a clean cut from a knife, and just as gruesome, too: if a spirit was on the road, they were going to die that year. Ms. Evans asked their names, and Lily wrote them down. If they were a client, they were told, so they could get things in order, say their goodbyes, or the ever present possibility: spend their last year scared and alone.

It always bothered her. Would she want to know when she was going to die? A moral debate that led to the grim realization: one year she was going to write down her own name.

She tried not to think of that, it always led to her spiraling into thinking of the inevitability of death. But there was nothing she could do to stop the nagging sense of wrongness in her stomach.

It feels especially wrong tonight, not being here with her mother. Instead she’s only here with her sister, who insisted she needed to practice.

If her mother _was_ here, she might have said the coat would be warmer if it hadn’t been shredded, as most of her clothes were, but Petunia says nothing. She could say it all with a roll of her eyes.

Petunia gasps suddenly, waving her hands in the air and talking to an invisible spirit.

Lily scribbles the names down and as she did every year, strains to see. And, of course, she can see nothing. She’s not here because she could see the spirits, she’s here because she acts as some sort of magnifier. Her mother could only get the spirits to talk when she was there.

And so they work. She’s glad this only happens annually; the way it quickly becomes monotonous frightens her.

“And you?” Petunia frowned for the first time. “You’ve got to tell me your name.”

Lily looks up from her list, and feels every part of her plummet down to her bright red rain boots. She can see it. She can see _him_.

Her head fogs. He’s a _boy_.

Not only that, a Hogwarts student, from the looks of the sweater he had on.

“What’s your name?” She asks him, still shaking, but no longer from the cold.

“Potter,” he says.

Nothing is certain about him. She can’t see his face, or any defining features other than a thin pair of glasses. His hair is a mess, his glasses are sliding off his nose, he constantly shifts positions. Her first thought was wrong; this wasn’t a boy. It was what was left over.

She puts her hand on his shoulder to steady him, feels it flood with cold. “That’s it?”

He presses his glasses up; something that almost looks human, regretful of the fact he had left the world behind. 

“That’s all there is.” 

She turns away, tears forming in her eyes. Her whole life, she’s wished to see these spirits, but now she can only think one thing: he was going to die. He was practically already dead.

Petunia looks around her with her head tilted, completely in control.

“You saw him?” 

Lily nods numbly.

“That can only mean two things. Either you killed him, or he's your true love.”

* * *

James Potter curses to himself, then places a loving hand on his car.

“It's not your fault,” he whispers. It is, really, but he chooses to ignore this. The Nimbus, his beloved piece of scrap metal, gives a feeble cough in response. He climbs back in, sinking into the well-worn seat, closes his eyes, and rewinds his tape recorder for what must be the hundredth time. 

His car breaking down on the side of the road had interrupted this procedure, but he now resumes listening to the crackle of December air, going on and on until he yet again hears the whisper of his own voice:

“That’s all there is.”

He had camped out at the old graveyard the night before. The locals had a story that on St. Mark’s Eve, you could catch a glimpse of spirits destined to die that year.

He had expected, hoped for, a slight noise that would serve as fuel that ghosts, that magic, were real. He would’ve played it for his friends, and they would have tried to explain it logically. He had not expected to hear his own voice. 

The roar of a motorbike interrupts his thoughts. He looks up to see one of his three best friends, Sirius Black, speeding towards him.

Sirius climbs off and rolls his eyes.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

James grumbles. “The Nimbus broke down.”

Sirius pauses. He looks especially rough out here, dark hair wild from the wind, leather jacket slung over his shoulders. He oozes power, a look he’s been perfecting since he realized his mother would talk to him less the farther gone she thought he was. But James has known Sirius for so long he can see past it. His mouth is quirked up, always, and his cheek twitches with silent laughter.

“I can’t believe you’re making me miss school, Potter.”

“Yes, because we all know how dedicated you are to your education.”

“What were you even doing out here?”

“Spirit stuff.” He tosses his friend the tape recorder. “Listen.”

There’s an awkward pause until Sirius plays it. He lifts his eyebrows at the sound of James’ voice.

“I-I can’t believe it. This-this device-you spoke into it, and it recorded it! It’s not like it's called a tape recorder or anything.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“What, you _didn’t_ say that?"

“No, I didn’t say a thing all night. I didn’t want to interfere with the spirits.

“You went to hear spirits.”

“Yeah, I just thought it might prove, you know, we’re on a ley line. That’s why you can hear the spirits, they’re supposed to be walking on it.”

Sirius throws his head back and laughs.

“It’s not even worth it to argue with you. Both you and your car are too stubborn to give up. Climb on, we can tow it home later.”

His hands are clammy as he passes James a helmet, and James knows why. He isn’t dumb. They both know it can’t be good that he recorded himself when he went to record spirits.

The trees seem to speak as they pull away, whispering in dead languages, and James can’t help but to think that something has started.

* * *

They meet up with the rest of their friends at Hogsmeade Manufacturing, the old warehouse James has gutted and filled with beds, a fridge, and dirty laundry, and where they all live. 

James is far from his family, and he had originally intended to use Hogsmeade as a home base while he stayed in Henrietta researching the ley lines. Then the small city grew on him, and he found himself staying for much, much longer than he first thought. And so he made it a house. 

Then Sirius Black got kicked out of his house and moved in. Then Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew joined their circle and moved from their dorms into the building. And so they lived together, and made it a home.

They argue over grocery shopping and which Muppet they would be and which teachers would win in a fight. They watch _Grease_ and _Bridget Jones’ Diary_ and _John Wick_ and buy giant versions of everyday objects on Amazon and they go for pizza too much. 

They all go tonight and order seven orders of garlic knots and laugh at bad jokes. 

“Sirius, I’m not your dad—Jesus Christ, Pete, stop picking the avocados off the pizza, you need to eat something green.” 

Sirius cackles and attempts to shove a slice in Peter’s mouth, who squirms and knocks the salt shaker off the table, which lands on the floor with a crash and earns them a glare from a red-headed waitress as another rushes in with a broom.

 “That’s her,” whispers James fervently.

“The one with the face?” Peter asks.

“No, the one _without_ a face.”

“Amy Adams?” Sirius asks, gesturing to the red-headed waitress who just glared at them.

Remus squints and frowns. “Not every redhead looks like Amy Adams.” 

 _Her_ is the reason that James often goes alone to the restaurant, trying to get up the courage to ask out.

“I’m going to ask her out.” James blurts out.

None of them look him in the eye, but he feels the general consensus is not good.

“What? I’ve been thinking of a plan for weeks. I’m going to tell her that one of you likes her, then invite her to sit down with us. That way I can charm her without getting anxious about impressing her, impressing her more. And then afterwards, she’ll tell me she wished I liked her instead of one of you, and I’ll tell ber, and _boom_.”

“Isn’t she working?” Peter asks.

“Who will she think likes her once she sits down?” Remus asks.

“Wasn’t she just glaring at you?” Sirius asks.

But if James is stubborn enough to refuse to replace his terrible car, he’s stubborn enough to not admit his plan is not a good one.

He gets up, gives them a thumb up, then taps the waitress, who’s now on her knees cleaning the floor.

“This isn’t going to go well,” says Sirius, already flagging the other, friendlier waitress down for a box so they can get out as soon as possible.

* * *

She’s working the five pm hell shift at the local sleazy pizza parlor, which is nothing unusual. The entitled pricks from Hogwarts seem to think it’s their very own Central Perk. Luckily, there are waitresses who’ll flirt right back who gladly take up the boys so she doesn’t have to.

These ones are especially loud, cramming four people into the tiny booth and having an animated (read: screaming match) discussion over whether a deer or dog would win in a fight.

It’s not her problem. Her problem is balancing twenty plates on her arms and cleaning the toilets and explaining to Mrs. Peterson that yes, the cheese pizza does have dairy. She’s a waitress. Almost everything is her problem, except for Hogwarts boys.

Until one comes up to her, dressed in crisp white polo and chinos. He taps her on the shoulder as she’s scrubbing the floors of some kid’s orange soda and clears his throat.

“What?” She says, as grumpily as possible, drawing herself to her full height of five feet.

He’s not really tall, but something about the way he holds himself make him look it. Like he’s the president or something.  He looks at the world like it’s his friend and it is, because it gave him his money. His cell phone is ever so casually resting in his hand, because he can afford to replace it if it falls and breaks.

“My friend kind of has a crush on you. I was wondering if you would you be willing to sit with us and hang out with him?”

He points back to his table.  Sitting around it are three boys around her age, all wearing bright red and gold uniforms, all laughing. One has longish, dark hair. He would almost be intimidating—his eyes are hardened, blazing with an unknown fire—but his smile is not unkind. The second boy is small, with a huge grin on his face, and chubby cheeks. The third looks entirely done with whatever the joke is, but he’s laughing too.

They all look extremely comfortable with each other. This is the kind of friendship she makes fun of. That she used to have with her sister. That she doesn’t have now. That she desperately, secretly wants.

 She’s pretty sure none of them like her. So that means it’s a cover for the boy in front of her.

“I do have this thing called a job. Maybe you’ve never heard of it.”

He blushes.

“I could pay you for the time you’ve lost,” he says.

She’s not faking outrage this time. “I am not a prostitute!”

President Cellphone’s eyes widen. “Of course not!”

 She understands now how people freeze up in crisis. No matter how she tries to raise her hand to slap him, they remain firmly at her sides. Her mouth opens dumbly as she thinks of a response until:

“I don’t know how it works at Hogwarts, where you’re all used to Daddy paying for whatever you want, but in the _real world_ , you can’t pay for a woman. And apparently, you can’t buy game either.”

The poor fool pushes his glasses up and backs away to his table, where his friends are making the booth rock as they slam their fists on the table in fits of laughter.

Lily glares, then crouches back down and continues to wipe the floor as angrily as she can, slamming the rag back down.

It’s late, and Lily is hissing at a raccoon blocking the garbage cans.

 “Scram! Shoo!”

 It’s hissing back at her, and they meet eyes before she charges, screaming and swinging the trash bags in circles in front of her.

The raccoon screams and runs just as the door to the kitchen opens up and Vinny, the manager steps out.

 “Hey-”

 She drops the trash bags at her feet and wipes her hands on her jeans.

 “Yes. Yes! What can I do for you?”

 “This got left tonight. At the booth with the boys you knew.”

 "Oh, no. I definitely do not know…” she trails off as she looks at what’s in Vinny’s hands, a thick leather journal. It is obviously about something important to the owner, as it’s stuffed to the brim. And she knows who the owner is. She saw it in President Cellphone’s hands earlier that evening, and she wants desperately to know what a boy like him would care about enough to put in a journal like this.

 “Sure, I’ll get this to them. Night.”

 He grunts in response.

 Lily tosses the bags in the trash, then races home on her bike, her precious cargo in her basket.

* * *

 “Have you met him yet?”

 Petunia saunters into her room, reeking of incense and herbs.

 Lily looks up from her nails, where she is painting each a different color. “Who?”

 “Don’t play dumb, you know who. Potter! Your true love! Or _victim_. Really, he’s a victim either way.”

 “Why do you care?”

 Petunia seems to inflate, swelling with importance, then says: “Because you’re about to! He’s made an appointment for twelve.”

 It’s 11:55.

 “Oh, great. He believes in psychics.”

 “Your entire family is psychic.”

 “It’s the type of person. I trust you’ve told me about him because it involves some sort of personal gain for you?”

 “I want to give him his reading.”

 “Hell no.”

 “Mom says I need to practice.”

 “You just want to snoop and embarrass me.”

 "You don’t need anyone to do that for you.”

 In the end, they both lose. Petunia is to supervise the reading as their mother does it.

 Five minutes pass. Lily messes with her hair in the mirror. Ten minutes pass. Lily bites her lips in spite of herself to make them seem redder. Twenty minutes pass.

 “He’s late,” Petunia says.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway echoes through the house, and then through the window, Lily sees a flash of hideous orange. And then a hideous orange door open and close. And then a pair of perfectly ironed chino shorts. And then:

 “You,” Lily growls.

* * *

The house is made of bricks, with a little sign that confirms that this the house of a psychic. James found it online, the only psychic place in town.

Nobody speaks as the four of them walk up the steps. James knows none of his friends really believe in psychic, and that they’re only here for him. But he believes in them with all of his heart. Not all psychics. But some. He hopes this one is good, sensible.

 A girl a few years older than them opens the door, dressed in a long skirt and a rust-colored turtleneck, smelling of some sort of flower or herb. Her long hair has random sections braided, and she’s wearing mossy eyeshadow.

Essentially, she looks like a fraud.  

He’s about to shut the door again and apologize to his friends for wasting their time when two other women appear at the door. The first is a thirty-something woman in jeans with her red hair in a ponytail who smiles and introduces herself as the psychic. The second woman is her. The waitress. The waitress is frowning.

 “Are you Potter?” She says.

 “James Fleamont Potter III,” Sirius says grinning.

 “Oh dear,” the psychic says. She gives the waitress a look, which James, optimistic as he was, does not think is a good sign. “Well, come in.”

 They all enter and sit down around a long table. The woman says, “I’m Miss Evans. I hope you don’t mind if my daughters sit in on the reading? This is Lily and this is Petunia.”

 Petunia gives a little wave, but Lily, the waitress, just frowns harder.

“Since there’s so many of you, the room is crowded with your energies. To keep it clear, I’ll have each of you pick just one tarot card,” Miss Evans says.

 She takes out a deck and offers it to Remus.

 Remus pulls out the moon card. Miss Evans looks at him and smiles.

 “You only believe you’re confused on what to do with your life. You’ll know when it’s time to decide. And you know, you deserve your friends. Don’t isolate yourself from them, they really do care about you.”

 Sirius takes a card and laughs. He holds it up, showing the picture of the devil turned upside down.

 “Reversed, the devil card means you’ve broken away from something, that you’re standing alone.”  

Sirius snorts.

James eagerly takes one and lays it on the table. The world card.

Miss Evans looks at it for a long time.

“You’re accomplished. You’re good at many things. But something isn’t finished. Right? Something needs to happen that will end many things at once.”

James nods. “Absolutely.”

“And you,” Miss Evans says, looking at Peter. He reaches out to take a card, but she lets out a little gasp when he touches one and stands up.

“The reading is over. Don’t bother paying.”

“I insist,” James says, making sure to infuse charm in every syllable.

“Just leave it on the counter, then. Lily, take them to their car.”

James leaves a crisp fifty on the counter, then touches Lily on the arm as she’s shoving them out the door.

“Hey, can we talk?”

“Uh… sure.”

“I just wanted to apologize. Listen, I suck. I’m terrible.”

He looks down at himself in an act of apparent disgust, and Lily can’t help but smile. He has clearly rehearsed this several times.

“My friends are always telling me that I say the wrong things. Words start out sounding great in my head, but by the time they’re out of my mouth they’re a huge mess. I don’t ever know I’ve offended someone until it’s too late, and then even after I apologize it eats me up. But I swear to anything I’m not normally as bad as I was when we met. And I promise whenever I say something like that you have full permission to tell me off." He grins eagerly.

“Maybe we’ve started so low, the only way to go from here is up,”

He doesn’t seem to get that she’s teasing him. And maybe, now, she’s sort of not. She read his journal, cover to cover. It was more than a scrapbook, more than a journal. It wasn’t a diary, but it was somehow even more personal. So much time and care and love had been put into it that when she looked at him, she couldn’t help but see someone entirely different than the asshole she met at the restaurant. And it was about _magic._ Ley lines and mythical kings. ( _He’s going to die. He’s going to die. He’s going to die_.)

“Exactly! So, in the name of second chances, I was wondering if you wanted to join me and my friends on an expedition this Saturday. As another friend." 

“What sort of expedition?”

She knows it’s got something to do with some ancient Welsh king called Glendower. At least, that’s what his journal is about. 

“A hunt for Owain Glyndŵr, or Glendower. How much do you know about him?”

“A bit.”

“Really?”

“Welsh king, led a rebellion against English, supposedly sleeping somewhere on ley lines,” she says, repeating the highlights of the journal.

“Legend is he’ll grant a wish to whoever finds him.”

“What’s your wish?”

“To find him.”

In spite of herself, she snorts.

“You’ve almost got me persuaded. Or, Glendower does.”

“Evans gets it! He’s out there somewhere, just begging to be found.”

His eyes shine under his glasses. This is different from the smooth, seventeen-year-old presidential candidate she had seen the other night. This one is significantly dorkier and much more likable.

“So, Evans, will you come?”

“Alright.”

“Great! How do you feel about helicopters?”

“Uh, why?”

“You’ll find out.”

* * *

Taking a helicopter wasn’t completely necessary, as the site they were scoping out was only an hour’s drive away, but it _was_ completely cool. But of course, this is not a date, because he messed up his chances with that, so he’ll remain at a respectable distance.

He drives his car up to her house exactly five minutes before they agreed to meet and waits in the car, finding a song on Spotify to play before he walks up to her front door and knocks thrice.

She opens it, wearing some sort of smock covered in paint as a dress.

“Where’s the helicopter?” She says, smiling. She’s smiling. She’s actually happy to see him.

“It’s to come. Promise.”

She hops down her steps and sits in the Nimbus, giving it a once-over before starting to organize the papers he’s left strewn around it. He turns on the radio, and she looks back at him.

“Is this Bikini Kill?”

“Yeah. I hope I’m not making assumptions. But I did think you’d like them.”

“I do,” she says.

They spend the rest of the drive to the helicopter in silence. She hums a couple of the songs under her breath, quietly enough that anyone else wouldn’t hear it. But his life as a very good finder has made him a very good listener so that he searches out any small noise, any small clue. Today, he just hears a clue for him to smile.

* * *

Evans is not impressed.

“Is he flying this?”

She gestures at Sirius, who frowns.

“Tell Miss Bob Ross over here that _he_ has his pilot’s license.”

James frowns. Sirius is wearing a leather jacket and all black and has a pack of Camels in his pocket and if James knows him at all (he knows him very well) it’s to scare off the threat to the balance of their friend group.

“Evans, I assure you that Sirius is a very good pilot. He’s been training since he was eight.”

“Jesus. Alright, I trust him.”

Peter pipes up from the back. “Hi, I’m Peter.”

“And I’m Remus. The only sane one here.”

Lily laughs and waves.

“So where are we going, exactly?”

“Someplace James think is on a ley line,” Remus says.

The helicopter starts and James gestures to everyone to put in their headsets.

“So, you and your sister are named _Lily_ and _Petunia_?” He asks.

“I know, that's so weird compared to normal names, like James Fleamont Potter III.”

He laughs for what seems like the millionth time that day.

“I’m going to call you Evans. Ever been up in one of these, Evans?”

“No. I haven’t ever been in an airplane either. I’ve always wanted to.”

“I could take you up in my family’s private one sometime.”

“Wow, you’re _that_ rich. Nah, I don’t take handouts. I’ll pay for a ticket myself one day.” She pauses for a second, then says, “I want to go study potential medicines hidden in the rainforest.”

“Shit. I’m sorry. Maybe I could join you on the plane instead? We’ll go Dutch.”

“That’s the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

A traitorous blush rises in his cheeks. Thankfully, he’s saved by Sirius landing the helicopter in a clearing beside an expansive patch of trees.

“James, I think this is private land,” Sirius says upon landing.

"Since when have you been concerned with the law?”

“I’m not fucking Jesse James. I don’t want to get shot at for trespassing.”

“We’ll be quick. Three minutes. And I’ll use myself as a human shield if we get shot at.”

 James opens his backpack and takes out a well-polished metal device.

“Anybody know what this is?”

“Isn’t it some sort of frequency reader? Like they use on ghost hunting tv shows?” Lily asks.

“Right, I forgot our resident psychic would know! What she might not know is that it can also track ley lines. And we’ve tracked it to here. Let’s get to it, gang.”

They’ve walked about ten feet when Peter says, “Remus would totally be Velma, right?”

Remus stops. “What?”

“In the Scooby gang. And James would be Fred. And Lily-”

“Do not call me Daphne. I am Scrappy-Doo.”

Sirius high fives her.

“Okay, but Scrappy-Doo is evil,” James says.

“Only if you count the live-action movie,” she says.

“He’s definitely evil in everything,” Remus says. 

“Like Jar-Jar Binks.” Peter adds.

“I don’t get the Jar-Jar hate. He serves his purpose as the comic relief,” James says.

Lily laughs. “No! James, are you actually defending Jar-Jar Binks right now?”

She fits in so well with his friends that it’s like she’s always been there.

If anybody there was paying attention to something other than the conversation at hand, they may have noticed the stilted air, the air that seemed pumped in by tubes by someone who had only heard of what air should feel like. They may have noticed the sun-dappled leaves connecting overhead to form arches to shade their guests. They may have noticed the craftsmanship of the forest was so immaculate that it almost seemed to be made of marzipan. But they didn’t notice. They noticed the sun hugging their skin. They noticed small throwaway smiles. They half-noticed the foreverness of days like this one, but they didn’t notice how the time really did pass slower.

They barely notice the trees around them until they have to. They run into a stream with a neat bridge of rocks and a group of bluish finned tenants. Beside it is a large, hollowed out tree that might as well have had a sign advertising free pizza, for its pull towards them was so great that James walks towards it without any real knowledge of why. His glasses brush against the top of the tree and fall to the ground as he walks in and the trunk covers him, and Remus picks them up to hand to him when he comes out.

But he doesn’t come out, not quickly. He comes out about five minutes later, and he says, “You guys have got to see this.”

So Lily volunteers, and climbs in.

* * *

The first thing she notices is the itch of foreign clothes on her skin. When she looks down to see why she feels her shirt brush past her knees, she stumbles. She’s watching herself holding James a few feet away, but she’s also there—she feels rain falling, she feels her shirt getting wet and clinging to her skin. She closes her eyes, feels tears gather at her lashes. He’s crying too, and somehow she knows they’re both pretending it’s just the rain.

“I’m getting your shirt wet,” she hears herself say.

“Keep it,” he says. This aches, for some reason she can’t explain, like missing her father when she’s never met him. “I think I’m ready.”

“I’m not,” she says.

He runs a hand through her hair and lets it trail down her face so that he’s cupping her chin.

“My hair is ruined,” he says, gesturing to his dense curls.

“Won’t stop me,” she says, and then she’s rising up on her toes and wrapping her arms around him and pressing her lips on his.

They kiss and everything ends.

She falls to her knees.

“Evans?”

She gets up, wiping the tears dotted across her face off before she walks out.

“James, what did you see?”

“It was me, finding Glendower.”

“Oh.”

“What did you see?”

“My mom dropping me off at Harvard.”

“Oh.”

“Does it show fulfilled wishes then?” Remus asks.

“Probably,” she feels herself say.

Peter reaches out his hand and she takes it without thinking.

James smiles. “So I guess we could say this place is definitely magical. Or influenced by ley lines, I mean.”

They walk back. They both hang behind the others a little.

“I think we’re going to get some gelato after this. If you’d like to come, you’re more than welcome,” he says. That’s the only reminder that she’s only been hanging out with them for a few hours because he has to invite her to things the others will always be at.

“As long as you drop me off a few minutes before we get to my house, so nobody sees me getting out of your car.”

* * *

It's easy, in the days after the expedition, to forget what happened. Lily focuses on work, on avoiding her sister. For all she knows, fate messed up and their meeting was a one-time thing, a fluke. Until he calls her.

“Hello. This is James Potter. Is this the Evans residence?”

The corners of her mouth tug up a little despite herself. “Yes.”

“Evans! I’m glad to hear your voice. Really. I was worried I’d have to talk to Petunia.”

The charmer. “What’s up, Potter?”

“I want you to look into the future and see if you’d be free this afternoon to go on an expedition.”

“Is that a pickup line?”

“It is if you want it to be.”

“Bet you say that line to all the girls.”

“Only the psychic ones. Or the psychic-adjacent ones.”

“I can come. Who’s all coming?”

“Well, Remus is working. And Sirius is out. And Peter told me it’s his off day from spirit stuff. So I guess just you and me?”

“It almost sounds like a date.”

“It is if you want it to be.”

They both burst out laughing.

“Pick me up at three?”

“I’ll be there at two fifty.”

Lily puts on her ugliest and best shirt covered in iron-on patches and a pair of watermelon printed shorts and waits.

* * *

They’re hiking to find James’ magic welsh king. Just them. Maybe if they were completely different people, those words might have that foreign rosy tinted hue of romance. But he’s wearing a salmon-colored polo shirt to go with boat shoes that might mysteriously disappear when she gets a chance to burn them. And they’ve been walking so long that her toenails are threatening to push through her shoes.

“Let’s stop,” he says, with a hair flip worthy of an Olympic swimmer.

“Alright.”

They sit cross-legged on the grass and for a few seconds, she appreciates how at home he looks, with the clouds pushing themselves through the sky behind him and his glasses fogging slightly with dew, the gentle hum of summer filling the silence.

“Let’s get real, Evans.”

She forces herself to look him in the eyes, but only hums in response.

“Do you believe in destiny?”

“My entire family is psychic.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I think of it this way. Time is cyclical, not linear. My family can see into the cycle, you understand? It’s not looking across time to find the future, it’s more like looking through it.”

He takes a minute to digest her words. “That’s some _Stranger Things_ shit.”

In spite of herself, she snorts. “But don’t listen to me. I see no more of the future than you.”

Except, of course, she knows he dies sometime soon.

“It separates you from them, though. Uh, in a good way, I mean. Like, you’re not like anyone else.”

There’s an awkward pause, in which he blushes and she looks away. He runs his fingers through his hair, which is not, as it usually is, an act of arrogance, but a mindless gesture as he thinks.

Then he speaks. “Evans, I’ve died before.”

It’s not exactly the strangest thing she’s ever had to believe. She can tell he’s surprised but grateful, that she doesn’t jump back in shock. “When?”

“I think I was eight. My parents brought me with them to a party. Political campaign fundraiser. A million people worth a million bucks each. The kids all decided to play hide and seek outside, and I ran into the woods, because I thought no one would think to look there first. Have you ever felt like you were exactly where you belonged?  That’s how it felt in the forest. Until I felt a little sting. Just a prick. But before I knew it, they were swarming around me. When I was a baby, I got stung by one bee and almost died. One sting could kill me now. I knew I was dead then. I felt my heart stop, but just as I closed my eyes, I could breathe again.”

His voice wavers, and she focuses on a blade of grass next to him until he continues. They definitely shouldn't be at this point in their friendship yet. Some people never get at that point, and honestly, what he’s saying kind of sounds like material for a therapist until he speaks again.

“And then I heard this voice say _Glendower_. It said, ‘You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not

And so I looked him up and learned about this ancient king that some people say he’s still alive, just sleeping until someone can find and wake him. It just felt _right_. I feel connected to him somehow. I have to find him,” he ends lamely.

“Does anyone else know?”

“I told my parents, but they said the venom must have made me hallucinate.”

“Well, you’ve made the right friend if you want someone to believe you.”

“We’re friends, Evans?”

“Ugh, forget I said anything.” She slaps him on the arm, and the genuine laughter coming from both of them answers his question anyway.

Maybe they shouldn’t be at the point where they’re telling each other their deepest secrets, but they are. Lily tries to tell herself she does it because it’s easier to tell somebody outside of the situation, but that’s not exactly true. She wants to see his reaction.

“If I kiss my soulmate, he dies,” she whispers.

He turns over to her on one arm, his eyes full of pity and something else, a strangely distant look she’s never seen before, and suddenly she’s wondering how many girls he’s kissed.

“So you can never kiss anyone,” he finally says.

“Exactly.”

“Is it a secret?”

 “Not really. It’s more of a burden on me. You can tell the other guys. I doubt I’m going to go around kissing them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, I guess I don’t know what I’m missing,” she says.

“You’re not missing much,” he says, scrunching his nose. “Slobber all down your chin—”

“Maybe you’re just a bad kisser.”

Later, that’s all she’ll remember. They keep going, teasing and laughing and understanding, but the memory fizzles out there and jumps to others.

He visits her when she’s working, ordering nothing but glasses of water, taking up space so she won't have to work as much. After school, she rides her bike to Hogsmeade Manufacturing and lays on James’ bed and reads old historical texts with him for hours without speaking. Sometimes one of them will brush a foot against the other’s and sometimes they’ll both fall asleep. She and Sirius make dates to watch Netflix. On nights when the boys decide to get takeout and don’t see her, Remus makes sure to hide the leftovers in the fridge for her to eat the next day. She and Peter play a game of Risk in hour-long increments, resuming it whenever they have the time. When James treats them to gelato after a particularly successful research day, they share because neither of them can eat a whole cup. She’ll never need a man to complete her, but slowly James Potter adds something to her life. She has someone to go after school that’s not work or home, and something to do, and a boy who smiles at her and calls her Evans.

One Saturday afternoon, the kind where there’s nothing to do but sit around, Remus plays them an old Bees Gees song on James’ new speaker, a compromise, for they all have wide ranges of terrible music taste. James looks over at her, sitting next to him on the couch, and places his hand on hers. Just a touch, when no one else is looking, but they both understand what he means.

She spares a moment to imagine a day where a touch on the hand is just the beginning; when they can lay together on the couch, talking, their fingers intertwined, instead of sitting, afraid to even brush against each other. Then she buries it, and he’s dancing with Sirius, and she’s laughing with Peter, and the moment has changed.

“Oh,” she thinks. She isn't falling in love, she’s already in it.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a Sunday when it happens. The fight that happens that night is legendary, one that ends not in slammed bedroom doors but front doors and car doors. But before the night comes the day. That Sunday started promisingly, with sunny June skies and a pleasant, slow stickiness as Lily shoveled yogurt into her mouth. On her mirror was a note saying  _ Expedition Sunday! _ . Her alarm clock only beeped twice before she jumped out of bed. 

Today they were revisiting the site where The Thing happened. Or, The Thing Where She Saw Herself Kissing James, to call it by its full name in her brain. It bothered her much more in the beginning, when they were strictly friends or frenemies, but now it was different. Now that it didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world, it seemed much more likely to happen. And so it doesn't bother her anymore, it terrifies her.

James wanted to return with his fancy new equipment. Also, as he told Lily, he was open to the idea of swimming in a public pool nearby afterward, so she had a bathing suit underneath her dress, a yellow prom dress she’d cut to minidress length.   

He knocks on her door at exactly eight, just when he’d said. James is always annoying punctual. Lily, however, is not. She shouts a “Be there in a minute!” around the toothbrush in her mouth, then rushes to get her shoes when her blood runs cold. 

Petunia is talking to James downstairs. And ok, she tells herself, he’s a person. He can talk to whoever he likes. The thing is, she knows Petunia doesn’t like him. 

She runs down the stairs to see her sister in a bathing suit and James with his arms full of detectors. They all stare at each other for a few seconds before James reaches out to touch Lily’s cheek and drops everything.

“You have some toothpaste right there,” he says.

Petunia laughs. “Classic Lily. Always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But good thing she did today, right?”

James nods.

“Because we got to talking, and well, James is  _ so _ funny. I can’t believe I’ve never talked to him before. So I was thinking we could all could go to the pool together today so we can get to know each other better. I mean, your little adventure can wait a day, right?”

James nods again. 

So this is a thing that’s happening today. As they walk to the car, Petunia says, “James, can I ride shotgun?”

“Not happening, sister.” 

Sirius sticks his head out of the window and Lily think she’s never been happier to see him. (She’s always happy to see him).

“Hey, Maggot,” he says to Lily.

“Hey, Dickhead,” she says back. 

They high five. Petunia scoffs.

* * *

Petunia has her hands over James’ eyes in the pool. Sirius calls out from his pool chair, “He can’t see!”

“Uh, duh? My hands are over his eyes.”

“No! His glasses! He needs his glasses! He’s disoriented now!”

Almost on cue, James bumps into a wall. 

Lily sighs.

“You look like a banana,” Sirius says, putting his hand on a poofy yellow sleeve of Lily’s dress to console her. 

“A hot banana?”

“James looks like he wants one.”

They look at each other and burst out laughing.

“Stop. Shut up. That wasn’t a euphemism. I want a euphemism banana. James wants an idiot in a yellow prom dress.”

“Really?”

“You know it. He’s been looking at you all day with those stupid heart eyes he gets when talking about Glendower. You should add some green lipstick so you look like a stoplight.”

“They don’t make that. And stop deflecting.”

“They definitely do. But ok, feelings talk: I get what it’s like to have a shitty family. My mom threw me out at sixteen because she’s a raging homophobe.”

“God, I didn’t know, Sirius. I’m sorry.”

“It’s why I live in Hogsmeade, which is always better than living there, even when I have to hear James singing Billy Joel in the shower at five in the morning. So I guess what I’m saying is, maybe your sister’s not like that. Maybe there’s something good in her. Or maybe there’s not. Maybe there’s some of both. My brother texts me but refuses to see me again. Either way, the only reason I’m not fucking her shit up right now is because I know you’re going to.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

He pokes her with a pool noodle. She responds by squirting a tiny water gun at him.

* * *

 

And, as Sirius predicted, a fight does happen, as soon as James drops them off with a wave and a honk of the poor horn of his car. Petunia and Lily have gotten into many spats during the past few years, but none of them have been a real fight, with the real potential to end any remnants of a relationship.

“I bet James was happy to finally have someone on his level to talk to,” Petunia says as they walk through the door.”

“Well, he actually invited me, so I think he might not hate talking to me.”

“Sad your little pet found someone better?”

Here, Lily knows she could flip Petunia off and go upstairs. But then she thinks about what could’ve happened today. She could have tricked James into giving her the AUX cord so she and Sirius could rickroll him for the fourth time this month, or something. She could have stolen Sirius’ phone and filmed James and added commentary like they were on Ghost Hunters, and then blushed when she saw him smile. Instead, they’ve lost a day when she knows their time together is running out.  

So instead, she turns to Petunia and says, “You get everything. And one thing goes right for me and you go and try to ruin it. You ruined my day. Happy? You did it. I was miserable today. ”

Petunia’s eyes flash with a look Lily’s never seen.   “You know, I think you’re jealous of me. Jealous of the fact I’m psychic.”

“Jealous of the fact everyone thinks you're insane?”

“Says the girl who’s never eaten lunch with somebody else.  You know what? I really don’t care. Enjoy him while he lasts.”

Lily stands, frozen, as Petunia climbs the steps to her room, then goes and calls James on her clunky home phone. 

“Come get me,” she says, and what she means is, “I want to see you.” She’s tired of pretending, pretending that talking to James doesn’t make her smile, that their hands brush together by accident, that she doesn’t want to be his best friend and more.

He pulls up five minutes later, in his terrible car that she, for the first time, gladly gets into. The radio is playing. He turns it down, so she can only hear a faint beat, and then pulls away from her house.

She watches darkness blot out the sun as they drive through town, past the Walmarts and gas stations with signs falling down and into a stretch of forest, neither speaking.

She places her hand on his leg, surprised by her own daring. It’s warm and familiar and she wishes she could feel the leg underneath the cargo shorts.  

He understands, pulling over to an overlook. It’s empty, and not particularly beautiful, but it’s not the point. He helps her out of the car and she lets him, and she leads him to the car hood and he lets her. They get on, letting their legs dangle as they avoid looking at each other.

“Petunia hates me.” Pause. “I don’t know why. She got the talent. All she talks about is how she’s going to use it to leave and get rich.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“I used to want to be a chemist. My mom saved up one year, and gave a chemistry set to me for Christmas. I loved it so much I practically wore through the plastic beakers. But we don’t have the money to go to college for that. My mom had to save up for a stupid toy. You get so worn down. I  _ can _ achieve it. But I can’t.  Dreams cost money.”

“Evans, I can’t say I understand what you mean.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

He takes her hand in his and rubs his thumb over her fingers.

“Maybe she’s jealous of you. She thinks you get to pick whatever you want to do with your life, and she has to be psychic.”

“She should know I can’t. I picked and the universe said no.” 

“I can understand a part of that. You know my parents. What I do now is something they can write off as an eccentric hobby. But after this, I’m supposed to become a lawyer or doctor or senator.

She looks down at their hands and smiles.

“I’m tired,” she says. “God, you don’t understand. I’m so tired of wanting things that I can’t get.”

“I might.” He runs his tongue over his lips and her stomach twists, not unpleasantly. If it was anyone but her, if it was anyone but him, it would be so easy.

Just this once, she wants to make a decision for her own life. 

Maybe it’s the night, too dark to see the problems she knows this will cause. Maybe it’s the gnawing at her stomach: empty, empty.

She sighs, pushing out a wavering breath. At this moment, she’s not sure of even this.  He’s looking at her lips and she’s looking at his, and the silence feels like a secret.

He breaks it. He will always break the silence. “I wish you could be kissed, Evans. Because, just this once, I would beg one off you. Under all this.”

“We could pretend,” she suggests. Except it’s not a suggestion. She knows him. She knows he will push himself towards her until the space between them is finally bearable. 

 She can’t see past him. His glasses, forever slipping down his nose. His eyes, which she thinks she could read forever. His mouth, which she will never get to touch. She will never be able to touch  _him_. He is next to her, and she is next to him, and she’s never been able to see the future, and she doesn’t want to, because she doesn’t want a future without him. James Potter, who shouldn’t die now. His skin is warm when she pretends to accidentally brush past it. The only time he’s out of breath is after hiking miles to find the burial site which consumes him. With every breath, he is alive, alive, alive. He knows so much and yet he knows nothing. 

His cheek is against hers, his arms wrapped around her. She can feel the rhythm of his breathing and for just a second, she can pretend it will never end. His breath. Them. Lily Evans and James Potter. Pressed together in a moment that will never end but ends all the same.

_ Oh, no. _

They stumble apart and the instant they do she wants more. She wants to be Lily and James, something no one has to think about. She wants to hold his hand. She wants to talk to him at night, his voice familiar and tinny through the phone. She wants to laugh together at nothing and she wants to laugh at jokes no one else understands. She wants to strip away his many other sides until there is only him, the James Potter he only lets her see at times like now. She wants a million moments she can never have.

Mostly, she wants to rewind time and stay there. 

He looks at her and she knows he wants the same thing. 

“What do we do now?”

He’s leaving her. He’s building the barrier again and all that remains is the tone of his voice. 

“We never speak of it again.”

* * *

And they don’t. They don’t speak of it. Because this is what friends do. Friends go out to McDonald’s together because James has never had a Big Mac. Friends drive out to the country with a picnic and lay on a blanket cloud watching. Friends call each other when they can’t sleep and talk until there’s snoring on both ends of the line. Friends hold hands in secret. Friends want to kiss each other. She tells everybody else about her curse, in what he thinks is an attempt to even things out.

He lays in bed and waits for her to call. She doesn’t have a cell phone, so she has to wait for her assorted family members have all gone to bed and stopped using the clunky home phone to call him, but something about the fact she’d wait that long just to call him makes the wait alright.

“Alright, Potter?”

“I’m alright.” 

“Are you in bed?”

“Yes,  _ mom _ .”

“Eww. But you do need to sleep. Somebody’s got to be sure the honorary dad of your friend group is taking care of himself.”

He rolls over to face the wall, which somehow makes it more private, even though he knows everyone is in bed.

“Do you have a favorite animal?”

Her laugh is a little delirious. “That’s our deep conversation tonight?” 

But she understands. “Ever since I was young, I’ve liked looking at the deer in our yard. Does, right? I think that’d be mine. A doe.”

And he starts laughing too, because, damn, they really are soulmates. 

She must think he’s laughing at her choice, because she shoots back, “Is there a problem with that?”

“No, it’s just, uh, ever since I was, like, five, deer have always been my thing, I guess. I have a pair of deer socks that Sirius likes to laugh at. Shit, I even had a deer backpack when I was in kindergarten.”

She joins his laughter and then it’s just them, laughing on the phone together, and why would anyone ever do anything else?

“This may just be me,” she whispers, suddenly serious, “but I think you’d make a really hot deer.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“You would! And no, you won’t.”

“Goodnight, then.”

“Night.” She pauses, and he can hear her thinking before she says, “Remember, the world knows you’re just one person. It doesn’t expect you to solve all of its problems in one night.”

She’s right. She’s usually right, except about fingerless gloves (and having Sirius on her side actually weakens her argument, no matter what she says), and somehow knowing that she wants him to sleep makes it come easier.

* * *

He wakes up later that same night. His phone says 2:30, and he groans, getting up to have a glass of milk that will hopefully trick him into feeling tired.

Sirius is sitting on the couch, watching TV with the subtitles on and no sound. Neither is shocked to see the other.

“What’re you watching?”

Sirius points to the screen, where Jon Snow is brooding, coated in snow.  At one point, they had both tried to have a debate over who would survive to the finale, but all of their opinions were the same.

“Everyone else asleep?”

Sirius shrugs. “Remus is.”

“Working three jobs will do that to you.”

“And Peter is probably walking around his room on his hands or doing some other weird shit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sleep.”

“He could come out here with us.”

“Excuse you? This is insomniacs only, not fucking aliens. Also, he hates gore.”

As if on cue, someone on screen silently screams out in pain.

James frowns and jumps back to a previous topic, something he can only do with Sirius, who always knows what he’s talking about. “I’m worried about him.”

“Remus? Me too. He’s working himself to the bone.” As a result of his upbringing, Sirius has a wide variety of what the others call grandma sayings, which are often mixed with curses.

“And I tell him he’s no use to colleges if he dies from exhaustion. But you know he doesn’t listen.”

They both pause for a second, watching Jon Snow again.

“So Evans, huh?”

“I wish.”

“Have you two not gotten your heads out of your asses yet? After I went to all that trouble setting you up at the pool?”

“I really like her. I think she likes me. But we can’t.”

Sirius looks at him and frowns. “James—”

“You can’t tell me that hearing me say my name on the night  _ spirits  _ come out is a good omen. And then Lily tells me that if she kisses her soulmate, they die.”

Sirius raises his eyebrows. “Do you think you’re her soulmate?”

“Do you think I’m crazy if I say yes?”

Sirius turns the TV off. “No,” he says slowly. “I’ve never known you to be unsure about anything. So if you think you are, I think you’re probably right. Just tell me. Do you love her yet?”

“Can I leave her, do you mean?”

“I’m just making sure. Making sure you’re not signing up for a death sentence blindly.”

James swallows. “I think I do. I think that’s even crazier.” But he is sure.

“How do you know?” Remus says from the doorway to his bedroom. He looks gaunt, ghostlike. Like he’s halfway to becoming a shadow.

“You should be asleep,” James says.

“Had a nightmare. Something about werewolves. But that’s off topic. How do you know you love her?”

“Evans is—she’s like a mirror. I look at her and then all of the facades and fake smiles I didn’t even know I was giving fall away and I’m just me again. I say things that aren’t pleasantries and small talk. Things that mean something. She makes me think about things I never would have before. I don’t know. How do explain something you just know? She… she makes me quiet. She helps me sleep.”

His cheeks flush. Admitting to himself that he’s found the love of his life at eighteen is a lot. Admitting it to two of his best friends is something even bigger. The gates for the other paths the future could’ve taken are locked now, but really, he thinks they’ve locked for a long time.

Sirius and Remus give each other a meaningful look, then Sirius says, “So what do we do now?”

“What else is there to do? We wait.”  _ We wait until I die. _

* * *

 

The bus sucks. It always has, Lily thinks. She supposes it must not be as bad for people with friends who ride with them, but for her, it almost always has sucked. Not in elementary or middle school, when she and Petunia sat together. But it hurt in the first three years of high school, when she was aware she had nobody. And it still hurts even now that she does, because every time she sees people with their friends, she’s reminded of hers, and how they aren’t with her. She misses the summer, where they could meet up every day. She misses accidentally spending nights at Hogsmeade when she’d fall asleep on the couch during a movie and nobody would wake her up. She misses her friends.

She shivers a little and absentmindedly wishes it would snow so she could kick some. And then. 

She recognizes the sound of the engine before she can even see it. Within a few seconds, the Nimbus pulls up.

She walks up as James rolls down the window.

“Get in loser, we’re hunting for Glendower.”

A little piece of her bad mood falls away. “Very clever.”

“They’re staring,” he says, pleasantly. 

“Oh, yeah. Probably because they’ve all heard my thoughts on Hogwarts boys.” 

“That the Devil shat us out to cause global warming?”

“Oh, that’s good. I’ll be sure to use that one next time.”

“Pretty accurate. Also that we’re all humongous, preppy assholes who you’d never talk to in a thousand years?”

“Well… not exactly.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I think the word I used was ‘giant’.”

“You should probably invest in a thesaurus. It would spice the insults up a little.” 

“And that they’re all arrogant bastards.”

“Ah. So they’re all shocked you’re talking to me.”

“You can understand my predicament. Don’t want to be called a hypocrite” 

“Frankly, I’m a little shocked you’re talking to me as well.”

Lily covers her mouth so he doesn’t see her smile. She knows he can tell anyway. 

“Hold on,” he says. 

“IT’S A PERFECTLY SAFE CAR,” James screams, loud enough that everyone at the bus stop can hear. “YOU’RE THE ONE WHO CALLED AN UBER.” 

“FINE! BUT I’M ONLY GETTING IN SO THAT I CAN SUE YOU WHEN IT BREAKS DOWN,” she shouts back.

She gets in and slams the door. The playlist he’s made for her is playing softly.

“Want to stop at Dairy Queen before we go?” He says.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll pay you back later.”

“It’s my treat.”

“James.” This is not an uncommon argument. She wishes he would just accept that she doesn’t want charity.

“It’s not out of pity. It’s just what guys do for their—their, uh, you know.”

Lily can hear his heart beating. She thinks it’s such a beautiful sound. But just like a favorite book or song ends, she knows it will too, and she hates it. 

She reaches out her hand and he takes it, relieved.

“You can treat me to something later if you want. But we don’t owe each other anything, Evans.”

“Alright.” The bus stop already seems a lifetime away.

* * *

 

 

An hour later, with Blizzards in hand, they pull up to a site where James thinks a ley line exists.

“I came here to eat ice cream and to find Glendower. And I’m all out of ice cream,” Lily says, setting her cup down.

The word Glendower looks especially nice leaving her lips, even more so when it’s because she’s telling a Glendower related joke. 

They start walking.

“Evans, I have something to confess,” he starts, after they’ve walked in silence for about ten minutes.

“That’s never a good way to start a sentence. Are you secretly the leader of a Glendower-related cult?”

“Is that really a secret?"

"Ha," she says.

"No, remember that day at Nino’s?”

“Yeah. You tend to remember getting called a prostitute.”

“I was the one who liked you. I told you somebody else did because I was afraid to tell you outright.”

“I know, James.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’d come to pick up pizzas like four times a week. Even for a teenager, that’s excessive. Especially since the pizza there is terrible.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I promised myself I’d never date so I never felt the need to kiss anyone. And I thought I hated all Hogwarts guys. But you were really nice about it. You never came up and tried to hit on me when I couldn’t escape.”

“Wow. I thought I was being so subtle.”

“What did you even do with all those pizzas?”

‘I’d donate them to a homeless shelter.”

She closes her eyes and smiles unconsciously, like he's just told her she's won a million dollars. 

Then she says, “It’s  _ freezing _ .”

“You need to wear a thicker coat.”

“I like this one. It’s cool,” she says, gesturing to her patched-up denim jacket.

“It needs to be warm, Evans. Not cool. Get it?”

“I can't believe you actually just said that.”

He steps forward and wraps the ends of his duster coat around her.

“Hey!” She turns to face him, the coat still around her, and brushes a strand of hair out of his face. 

“You need a haircut.”

“I lost a bet with Sirius. I have to grow it out before he can cut it into a mullet.”

“No,” she says, horrified.

He can feel the warmth of her fingers come dangerously close to the hem of his shirt. Her lips are a little chapped from the air and he desperately wants to touch them, to press his own against them.

“I’m kidding,” he says. 

She lets out an awkward huff of laughter. They break apart and start walking again, this time in silence. 

At least thirty minutes go by before either of them speaks again. 

“Is that a skateboard?” Lily asks, pointing to something sticking out of a bush. “I can see the little wheels.”

“Go check. I don’t want to muck up my shoes.”

“Poor baby can’t get mud on his boat shoes,” she says, smiling.

She crouches down to pull it out, then screams. 

It seems almost normal for a second. Like she never bent down, like things are the same as they were two minutes ago. 

Then, with no warning, it settles. He thinks he feels bees on his skin. That’s the only way he can think to describe the pain of hearing her scream like that, with no way to know why.

He runs to where she’s sunken to her knees and sees it. A skeleton. A real one. That’s his first thought, as if people go around finding Halloween decorations in the woods. But it’s real. Somebody who lived just like him and Evans. Somebody who was missing long enough for their body to decompose. Maybe their family still holds out hope they’re still alive. 

His second thought is that the skeleton is wearing a Hogwarts sweater.

“Do you think he was murdered?” Lily says softly.

“Jesus. I didn’t even think about that. This is a crime scene. We need to call the police.”

“Wait a second. What’s that?” She crouches down to pick up what looks like a wallet, then lets out a small gasp. 

“What’s wrong, Evans?”

She hands him the wallet, which holds a driver’s license belonging to a smiling, slightly pudgy blonde boy who looks almost familiar. 

“Read the name,” she says. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

The boy  _ is _ familiar. It’s Peter Pettigrew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight delay on this one, I'm getting over a cold. I had a lot of fun writing this dialogue, so I hope you guys enjoy the chapter. Also, after editing this, I'm pretty sure I accidentally Frozen in one line, so, creds to that too, I guess??


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really like some parts of this chapter but I don't want to keep you guys waiting any longer so here it is. 
> 
> I still think there's so much to explore in this universe and I definitely think there's going to be more featuring these characters in the future. Thank you to everyone who read, gave kudos, and commented. It really does make my day/week/month and inspire me to write. I really hope you like this!

Lily sits in the backseat of the Nimbus, James’ coat draped over her like a blanket. James is talking to the police outside. She can see him pacing through the window and make a face at something they’ve said before hanging up.

He opens the door and climbs onto the back seat with her.

“Here, take a little bit,” she says, shifting his coat onto his legs.

He takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. It’s reassuring for both of them, she thinks, to know the other is alive, that they understand the secret they’ve stumbled into.

“Do you want to call your mom?”

She nods. It goes to voicemail, and she stutters out, “Hi mom, just checking in. James and I are out. We’ll be back in time for dinner.” 

“What was I supposed to say?” She says softly as she hands his phone back.

“There is no precedent for this,” he says. “I mean, I don’t know. I—the police are about an hour away. We have to stay so they can interview us.”

“What are we going to do?”

“You can use my phone. Have you played Temple Run before?”

“That’s not what I meant.’”

“I know. But it’s what we have to do right now. It’s all we can do,” he says. “Look, you have to run from this, uh, monkey, I guess. You just slide like that."

“What do you think he’s doing right now?” She whispers.

He looks at her, and she looks at him, and they both start crying. 

It’s like something from a cheap horror movie, the two of them staring at each other, tears streaming down their faces.

He takes a shaky breath and digs through his pocket to find a very old looking tissue.

“Do you want it?”

“No, thank you.”

He points to his impeccable polo shirt. “Do you want this instead?”

She nods, dabbing at her eyes with it for a while, eventually giving up and burying her head in his shoulder. James wraps his arms around her and she can feel his chest shaking with silent tears.

It feels more real now, to see him breaking down like this. Nothing feels like the end more than a broken statue.

James breaks away at the first sound of the police car. Within a few seconds, his tears are gone and he’s shaking the man’s hand. 

“What are you kids even doing out here?”

“Our parents don’t let us close our bedroom doors,” James says, grinning easily, throwing in his accent like a highlighted term in her statistics notes. 

The officer looks at her and chuckles.

“Kids these days,” he says. “You should be good to go in a few minutes. Just answer a few questions.”

They do, and then James drives them back to Hogsmeade. The drive seems to take ten years and ten seconds at the same time, and then they’re climbing up the stairs.

“Sirius! Remus!” James shouts. 

They greet them at the door.

“Where’s Peter?”

“He’s out, I think,” Remus says.

“No, he’s not,” James says, pushing past them into the living room. “Peter!”

“What the hell is going on?” Sirius asks.

He takes a deep breath. “Do you know Peter’s last name?”

“Of course,” Remus says. “It’s—it’s, uh.”

“It’s Pettigrew.”

“Right. I can’t believe I forgot it.”

“Do you remember meeting him for the first time? 

Sirius slowly shakes his head.

“Have you ever seen him sleep? Or eat?”

Remus narrows his eyes. “James, what are you saying?”

“He’s dead. He’s been dead this whole time.”

If he was saying anything else, it would have comedic how Remus and Sirius’ eyes bug like cartoon characters.

“He’s right,” a new voice says. All four heads turn towards him.

“Peter, we’re not mad,” Lily says. “We’re just confused. Help us understand.”

“We better sit down,” he says.

They do, all of them sinking to their knees and crashing against the floor. She thinks she’s sitting on a ketchup stain; she doesn’t care.

“When I was... alive, I was friends with somebody, who at the surface level, seemed a lot like James. Snape was obsessed with finding Glendower too, but for the wrong reasons. He wanted money and power. Two years before I met him, his father went to jail for fraud and lost all the family fortune. He went a little crazy without it. He wanted revenge.”

Lily places a hand on his. It’s ice cold. Somehow she never noticed it, but maybe she just didn’t want to.

“He decided to find him, there needed to be a human sacrifice.”

“And that sacrifice,” Remus starts.

“Was me,” Peter finishes. “Of course, he didn’t tell me that. We drove out to the ley line we had traced one night in my year, and when my back was turned, he took out my skateboard and smashed it against my head.”

“How are you here?” Remus says.

“I guess the cliche ghosts of having unfinished business is true.”

“Is it true?” James asks. “Do you really need a sacrifice to find him? I’m ending it all right now if it’s true. I’ll burn my notebook.” 

“James.”

“It’s true?”

“It’s—I don’t. James, none of it is. Glendower isn’t sleeping. When I died, I began to see things differently. Not in a line, but a circle. Lily’s mom could probably tell you the same thing. I saw you dying and I saw you dying again. I was the one who told you about Glendower because I needed you to learn about him to save it all one day.”

“What needs saving?” Sirius says. “You died and he lived! It’s even.”

“I wish it was. There’s a forest on the ley line. Well, we’ve all been, you know it. The ley line gives it powers. My sacrifice caused those powers to be given to my old friend.”

“Prove it,” Sirius says. 

“Ask James and Lily what happened with that tree.”

“Well,” James says.

“Uh…” Lily starts.

“You said it showed fulfilled wishes,” Sirius growls.

“I suppose it did, in a way,” James says, his eyes wide.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It was less of getting dropped off at Harvard and more of kissing James.”

James’ cheeks turn red. “Pretty much the same for me.”

Peter nods his head, almost creepily businesslike. “Exactly. It’s one of the forest’s tricks. It just shows whatever it thinks will get under your skin the most as a sort of way to entertain itself.”

“Ok, moving past this very embarrassing conversation. What exactly can Snape do with those powers?” Lily asks.

“Awaken someone who is sleeping,” Peter says. “Someone who’s not as benevolent as Glendower would be. He’ll use it to kill people who opposed him and take their money.”

“And why are you just telling us this now?” Sirius says. “Why didn’t you tell James when your first met him that Glendower was all a lie and we should be focusing on this evil guy instead?”

“We both only realized it a few days ago. Time felt slower, like we were all trying to run in the ocean. Things just felt wrong. I’ve been trying to figure out a plan.”

“I don't believe you,” Sirius says.

“Check your watch, James,” Peter says wearily.

James glances at his unbelievably expensive watch. “It says 4:12.”

“There’s no way,” Remus says. “It was 4:12 an hour ago.”

“His powers are taking up some of the forest’s magic. Messing things up.” Peter winces. “I realize how stupid this all sounds. An evil villain controlling a monster sleeping in a magic forest.”

“I just have one question,” Lily says. She really has two, but she already knows the answer to the other one. It’s the closest she’s ever come to being psychic and she hates it. “How does he know, after all these years?”

“He visited a psychic. He’s visited many, trying to figure out what went wrong. This one finally realized he did wake something that was sleeping, just something that wasn’t Glendower. The psychic was—well, it was your sister.”

James places a hand on her shoulder. 

“No. No, she didn’t mean to. Did she?”

“I think she was just trying to prove herself.”

She can feel James absentmindedly drumming his fingers on her shoulder, and it strikes her that he’s nervous, that he’s realized what has to happen now.

“I’m the sacrifice,” James says. “That’s our plan, right? Take the power away from him and then use it to put the monster back to sleep.”

“No,” Sirius says. 

Remus frowns like he’s gotten back a test he already knew he failed.

“Yes,” Peter says. 

“I’ll do it instead,” Sirius says. 

“Lily didn’t hear your name on the spirit road. She heard mine. It has to be me.”

“What does that have to do anything? We just found out it’s up to you if you die.”

“It is. And I’m choosing to. I should’ve gone a long time ago, that night with the bees.”

 

“Sirius,” Remus says, very quietly. 

He wilts.

“Well,” James says. “Let’s go save the world.”

* * *

The world has gone to hell, and he has to save it. He’s the good little soldier, always has been. He’ll do whatever’s expected of him; he rips himself apart, piece by piece. He worries so his friends don’t have to. And when they do, he fixes it. He cleans it up, puts the pieces back together for them, uses his blood as the glue. 

Lily looks at him sometimes, with a look he doesn’t think she completely understands. She’s jealous. She has a right to be. Life has pushed her sister and mother into her hands and given her nothing to compensate. She has lived her life on her own.

Sometimes he comes close to understanding. He sits in his car, floating in receipts and loose change that isn’t his, and it hits him how tired he is. He is tired of being beautiful and young and wealthy and tired of searching for something he’s begun to think he will never find just to prove he should be here. 

He wonders how dying feels. Then he remembers it’s not entirely unfamiliar. He has died before, and now he will die again. He must be scared. He supposes he is, but Lily is looking at him the way he imagines she looks when they talk into the phone at night. She’s tired; the bags under her eyes have bags, but her eyes are crinkled like they are when she smiles, and the top half of her hair, which is tied up, bobs when she moves her head to look at another part of his face and his hand is in hers and everything that is supposed to happen will happen.

Her nose has a smattering of freckles and he will count them as they kiss like other people count sheep at night. Perhaps in another life, he could've counted her freckles to fall asleep, but he wouldn’t need to if he had her voice, familiar and soft, talking about ducks or politicians or whatever she could think of to ease his mind.

He insisted on driving, to feel his car slicing through the stagnant air one last time. They reach the familiar forest far too soon. He remembers the first time they came, when he insisted on taking a helicopter to try and impress Lily, when she and Sirius fought, when he climbed into the hollowed tree and saw himself die from her kiss.

“Ready?” She asks, and he nods. 

She leans in and whispers, “Don’t be gone for too long.” She’s never said she loved him, but this is somehow better.

“I’ll miss you too,” he says, and he winks as their lips meet.

Not for the first time, but he supposes for the last time, he wishes the moment could last longer. He knows this is a tame kiss; he could’ve have picked her up and twirled her as she laughed and smacked him on the shoulder. They could’ve kissed in the Nimbus, pressed against the seats littered with receipts and chocolate bar wrappers like other people did. But her lips taste like the yogurt she’s always eating and the salt of her tears and he can feel her hands in his hair and his glasses are sliding down his face and it feels like it could go on and on and on.

He doesn’t hear Glendower’s name this time. He doesn’t hear anything. 

A flash of red catches his eye. He follows it, like he always does, until it becomes the red hair he’s so familiar with. 

Lily has a bed sheet wrapped around her in the shape of a toga. A look down tells him he does as well, though his is patterned with tiny roses. 

“I love the toga,” a boy he nearly recognizes says. Henry something or other, from school. He doesn’t seem like he’s joking.

“I like it too,” he hears himself say. “It feels very Urban Outfitters.”

Lily looks down at her Solo cup. “This is disgusting. I love it.”

Henry grins. “It’s frappuccino flavored beer. I’m thinking of starting a franchise.”

“Dear God.”

“Chin up, old man. Although, I have run into a bit of a legal issue over using the word frappuccino. Maybe your friend can help me.”

“Call it Barista Brewing Company,” Lily says, shooting James a look that Henry can’t see, her nose scrunched like it always does when she’s trying not to laugh. “And stop making it in a tub.”

“Genius! Potter, this one’s a keeper.”

He wants so badly to turn to this Lily and ask her where they are or what friend Henry mentioned, but the setting changes before he can.

It’s dark. An expensive sounding-jazz band plays as people swim around, stopping to feed off small talk, conversations about vacations to the south of France. And her hair looks different, cut shorter and curled.

“We have to go talk to him,” he says, gesturing to an important looking well-dressed man. 

“Oh, do we have to? Don’t answer. I know we do.” 

“Just a little small talk about how thankful we are for his donation to mom’s campaign and how helpful it was. Five minutes.”

“The costs of having a sugar daddy,” she says. 

“ _ Lily _ !”

It’s only now he realizes they’re older, by the easy way he says her name. She smiles warmly and he sees the faint beginning of lines around her mouth. 

“She knows what I’m talking about.” She points to a twenty-something blonde holding hands with a graying man with pants hiked up over his waist.

‘Are you calling me old?” He feels his hand float towards his face and push up a pair of glasses.

“You’re two months younger than me, so I sure hope you’re not old.”

“Come on, I need you to go with me. They love you. For good reason.”

“What a sap.”

And now the four of them sit around a kitchen table. The house is new to him but familiar enough that he knows it’s his. Pictures cover the walls: Lily smiling in front of the pyramids and in the rainforest, a newspaper clipping with a picture of him and an elderly professor shaking hands with the heading, “Acclaimed Writer Delivers Commencement Speech at Oxford Graduation”, and many of a chubby-cheeked baby. He sees at least three bookshelves in the adjoining living room, which is painted bright yellow.

Remus brings out a gigantic chocolate cake topped with several varieties of cookies.

“Say happy birthday to Daddy!” Lily says.

James looks next to her, where the baby in the pictures is sitting in a high chair. She waves his little hands around.

Lily is wearing a dress made from several aprons and the baby is wearing what he presumes is a creation of his mother’s, a little duck suit. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is pulled back with several rainbow-colored plastic barrettes. 

In elementary school, he imagined he would marry somebody like the girls at his private school. Many of them were nice. Most were shallow. None of them had passions like him. He imagined Ivy Leagues and mansions and becoming a lawyer and having three kids who did the same thing.

Later, he imagined he’d never get married. He thought the search for Glendower was more important than anything. He thought he was willing to give everything to find him. 

But he can’t imagine anything more important than seeing Sirius letting the baby wrap a tiny hand around his finger, or hearing Lily tell Remus he’ll be godfather to their next child. 

He hears no voice this time other than his own, whispering to his wife that he loves her.

* * *

 

She isn’t sure when it happens. She goes on and on and on until she can no longer feel the familiar pattern of his breath and then she gets up and sits on the roof of the Nimbus and waits. She waited to kiss him and she’ll wait for him to come back and get in his awful car and drive her home.

She doesn’t cry. James told her he’d be back and she trusts him enough to believe him. 

Sirius has his back turned and his hand covering his eyes. Remus has an arm slung around his back.

“What do we do now, Peter?”

“It’s yours, Lily. Just tell it what you want.”

“Okay. Alright. I can do that.” She turns to look at the mostly unassuming forest. “I want James back. And then I want it all to end. I want it to be over.”

Nothing seems to change. Fear finally sparks in her stomach, fiery and all-consuming, building up to her brain and down to her toes. She sees gravestones and family flying in and James’ body.

“Peter, what do I do? What’s wrong?”

“It’s okay, Lily. Just close your eyes and focus.”

She does. She thinks of Snape, who she pictures as a sleazy and smooth-talking stock photo, sitting in jail. She thinks of Peter, full of life and hope carting around a skateboard he’s learned his first trick on. She thinks of Remus and Sirius and James and James and James, living the lives they’re supposed to. She whispers among thoughts that yell, and the forest whispers back.

She hears a groan. Too quiet to be sure, but too loud to ignore. Then James opens his eyes, squinting, and she shouts, startling the boys and herself, and leaps off the car.

He outstretches his hand and she takes it, helping him up, but doesn’t let go when he pulls himself to a sitting position.

“I need—I need—”

“What?” 

“I need my glasses.”

She finds his glasses next to him. “Did you even look for them?”

“I couldn’t see them because I didn’t have them.”

“There,” she says, putting them on him just as he says,

“Evans, your kiss was killer.”

She laughs, and he does too, both far too proud that they made the other smile, and then their friends are laughing with them, and for a moment, they can finally be kids, laughing together at the least funny jokes in the world.

“Wait, Lily. Where’s Peter?” James asks.

She looks around frantically. He’s gone. 

“He must have realized the first sacrifice had to be undone,” James whispers.

“Oh God. He told me to close my eyes.”

“Lily, I think he was ready. He knew what was coming. Maybe he didn’t tell us when he found out because he didn’t want the last days to change.”

Sirius’ fists are clenched. “That doesn’t change the fact that that bastard Snape is just sitting around getting away with murder. He deserves to face justice for what he did.”

“He will,” Remus says. “We’ll make sure of it.”

The four of them look at each other, and for a few seconds, Lily Evans is psychic, for she knows what each one of them is thinking. Nothing's over, not really. Tomorrow they'll begin fighting for justice for Peter. They'll hunt down Snape, they'll tell Petunia what she indirectly caused, they'll burn James' notebook. But not today. Today they celebrate one small chapter closing.

The ride back is vastly different than the one there. There’s a slight sadness, but it comes with the understanding that things ended the way they were planned. It's a kind of clown car, with legs tangled up with legs and heads resting in shoulders and hands in hands and quiet inside jokes. 

It’s not until they get back to Hogsmeade that James pulls her aside.

“Do you think we can kiss now?”

“Do you want to try? No big deal or anything,” she says. She feels impossibly happy for someone who’s just watched her soulmate die. 

“You’re worth it,” he says. 

He leans down and kisses her.

It’s nothing like their first kiss, full of urgency and fear and something bigger than them. They’re both smiling so hard it only lasts a few seconds, and then James is kissing her forehead and cheek and hands and she’s in his arms. 

“You’re alive,” she whispers.

“I finally am,” he says. 

They kiss again. She slides her hands in his hair and pulls a little, and he laughs in surprise. 

She has years of this to look forward to: gentle goodnight kisses and passionate late-night kisses and quick kisses in pantries at fancy parties and teary goodbye kisses at the airport and a wedding kiss and a thousand others that will mean nothing to anyone but them.

It’s not over. It’s all just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to throw a little Henry in there, right?


End file.
